Recently, I came across an essay by Professor Cathleen Kaveny, published in Commonweal magazine, criticizing Fr. Richard John Neuhaus for sowing division among members of the Body of Christ. Her charge is that—for political reasons—Neuhaus was more interested in forging alliances with . . . . Continue Reading »
From the introduction to Evangelicals and Catholics Together at Twenty: Vital Statements on Contested Topics (Brazos, 2015), edited by Timothy George and Thomas G. Guarino, with foreword by George Weigel, and prefaces by Timothy Cardinal Dolan and J.I Packer. This volume contains the nine public . . . . Continue Reading »
Over twenty years on, the practical impact of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together is not hard to discern. Positively, it was part of a larger collaboration that gave us the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture and other related volumes. It also helped to foster the culture which surrounds First Things, perhaps the most articulate organ for the expression of conservative religious voices in the current cultural climate. Negatively, it shattered friendships and bred suspicion. Most notably, it served to rupture the relationship between J. I. Packer and leading Calvinistic evangelicals such as John MacArthur and R. C. Sproul. Continue Reading »
I would like to begin by thanking Mark McDowell, the editor of Reformation 21, for commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) in the pages of this journal.
In 1534, Abbot Paul Bachmann published a virulent anti-Protestant booklet entitled “A Punch in the Mouth for the Lutheran Lying Wide-Gaping Throats.” Not to be outdone, the Protestant court chaplain, Jerome Rauscher, responded with a treatise of his own, titled “One Hundred Select, Great, Shameless, Fat, Well-Swilled, Stinking, Papistical Lies.” Continue Reading »
In the Gospel of St. Mark, the Lord Jesus teaches that “from the beginning of creation ‘God made them male and female.’” He then declares a great and beautiful truth inscribed in creation: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his . . . . Continue Reading »
Despite legitimate efforts of believers to reserve a place in the public square, the followers of the secularizing ideologies have historically found ways to thwart such efforts, while, paradoxically, accusing the believers of trying to launch a theocratic takeover. Continue Reading »
In the spring of 1994, a distinguished group of Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants issued a much-discussed statement, “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium” (FT, May 1994). That statement, commonly referred to as “ECT,” noted a growing . . . . Continue Reading »